Posts tagged ‘self righteousness’

Prov 26 (Old Testament)4 Do not answer a fool according to his folly, or you yourself will be just like him.
5 Answer a fool according to his folly, or he will be wise in his own eyes.

Very often when I correct people on their lifestyle choices, I am supposedly schooled on what the Bible teaches concerning YOU SHALL NOT JUDGE. I happen to understand that people find their security in numbers (not in God) and when I express my disagreement on homosexuality, abortion, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, I suddenly see people who claim to believe in “live and let live” turn fascist, from a sense of insecurity that undermines the sweet lies they have been living by, which helps them maintain their complacent and lukewarm nature towards the truth about God (Rev 3:16). The road to damnation is indeed broad (Mat 7:13) thanks to the fall of mankind in Adam, and for the many who swim against the flow by the redeeming power of Christ, these are labeled by the world as homophobic, Islamophobic and haters of humanity, but God has already warned us in His word (Prov 26:4 & Mat 7:6) of the kind of backlash we would suffer in coming after him (John 15:19). This is the cost of discipleship which we are to take into account when we take that decision to carry our crosses and follow Jesus (Luke 14:26-33), lest we be the soil where our spiritual growth is choked by the worries of the world being unable to bear fruit in Christ (Mat 13:22), which brings God-the-Father to prune these away in His time (John 15:1-6). Surely the cost is great (Mat 5:11-12) but the harvest is priceless (Mat 13:44) [afforded to us who persevere by the redeeming power of Jesus Christ (Phil 3:14 & 4:13)] and justifies the cost in every way because the Triune God Almighty is deserving of such sincere worship in truth and in Spirit (John 4:23-24).

Mat 7 (New Testament)1 Judge not, that ye be not judged.
2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

Taking a look at the Mat 7:1 presented above, we see that the context in which we are told not to judge is in the sense that we are to practice what we preach. Take for instance, liberals in the USA who speak out against “gun violence” because the death toll in 2018 is so far 2,213 with 3,772 injuries on the whole while these same liberals actually support abortion, where these licensed murders across USA alone is 166,971 in 2018 so far. So, when you consider the reasons for abortions are: 0.3% in cases of rape, 0.03% in cases of incest, 0.1% in cases of risk to maternal life, 0.8% in cases of risk to maternal health, 0.5% in cases of fetal health issues and 98.3% being elective due to socio economic reasons; you understand how much these liberals value their fun and how little they value their God given responsibilities, which as opposed to gun-rights is not in the interest of helping civilians defend themselves in the case of a threat. So, for the liberal fool who does not fear God (Prov 1:7) it really is no big deal to hide a mountain behind a molehill by justifying abortions with reasons like rape, incest and maternal health. Now, if liberal hypocrisy allows them to do that, it therefore is well within their lifestyle of double standards to vouch for gun-control to make their self-righteousness look good being estranged from God and all truth. However, it is as the Bible says in Prov 8:36 about these humanist fools that: those who hate God eventually love death in any and every form.

Ezek 3
18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.
19 Yet if thou warn the wicked, and he turn not from his wickedness, nor from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but thou hast delivered thy soul.

Eph 2
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

It’s amazing to see the extent to which people are self-centered that they will actually use the “Word of God” to excuse their sin and hear nothing that will make them feel uncomfortable in their sin. To add to this, you also have foolish sympathizers who will senselessly side with the #LGBT and every other apostate religion saying, it is not for you but for God to judge. On the contrary, in bearing witness to the Gospel we who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as called upon by God to judge these godless fools that they may repent unto Christ and not perish forever in the fires of hell (Acts 2:38). Also, knowing the kind of hypocrites unbelievers are, these same people who tell us to keep our mouths shut concerning their sin are very capable of telling God on the day of judgement that there was no one to correct them and show them what is right when they were alive and well upon the earth, else they would have turned from the sin and believed the Gospel. Surely, God is sovereign and God is good, and it is in His sovereignty and He decrees us to speak out against the sins of the world (Ezek 3:18-19/Eph 2:10) and call them to repentance that they may believe and live a holistic life, delighting no longer in their sin but in the righteousness of God revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

Numbers 11 (Old Testament)16 The Lord said to Moses: “Bring me seventy of Israel’s elders who are known to you as leaders and officials among the people. Have them come to the tent of meeting, that they may stand there with you. 17 I will come down and speak with you there, and I will take some of the power of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them. They will share the burden of the people with you so that you will not have to carry it alone.

Luke 10 (New Testament)After this the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.

If you look at the scripture mentioned above you will understand that preaching of Gospel is based on the understanding that you one must repent in order to believe in the Gospel and unless one does not realize his/her sinful nature before the divine majesty and holiness of God, there really is no truth in the saving faith a person has received. Remember, Jesus came to called call sinners unto Salvation and not self-righteous fools, who are wise in their own eyes (Luke 5:32). So, we who are filled with the Holy Spirit are not called to tell sinners of the wonderful plans God has for their lives despite their sin as though God Almighty exists to wait on their every need in exchange for some religious attention. Instead, we who are filled with the Holy Spirit are given a living spirit to pursue the righteousness of God and His Gospel, and in doing so, call out the grave nature of the people’s sin that they may repent and turn to God, for as much as God is glorified in His good justice as He does so in His great mercy, it is in His mercy in which He delights, because it is by the power of His resistible grace that He draws people unto Himself in Christ, propitiating/overcoming their sinful nature by the power of Jesus’ blood and in doing so conforming their nature to His own likeness, because that is how we were made… in His image (Gen 1:26/Rom 8:29).

Rev 13 (look at this in the context of John 16:7-15)17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

I would like to conclude by simply saying this, the thoughts of the world and ways of the world, is nowhere compared to thoughts of God and ways of God, which as Isaiah 55:8-9 describes is as different as the high heavens over the earth. So, for a person who is fallen in Adam, who is a god to himself/herself, he/she naturally likes to use every wicked instrument in his/her arsenal to rise over and belittle his neighbour, and we know that is wrong because the truth is no man/woman is God, except of course for Jesus who is the God-the-Son incarnate as Man to be that unblemished sacrifice for all sin. For most part when Christians point out the sins of people in this godless world, they perceive it as belittling and what further agitates them is that there is absolute truth in that discerning judgement, which the unbeliever finds it very hard to deal with. So, the unbeliever finds it very hard to die to that that god-identity he/she has of himself/herself (John 12:24-26) and prostrate (bow out) before God and His righteousness revealed in Jesus (John 1:17) who truthfully is God. Yes, the Christian lifestyle is one that is set against the grain of this unbelieving world but God has promised in His word that He is going to reclaim this world to Himself in His time (Dan 2:31-45 & Col 1:16-20) and unbelief is only here to make hay while the sun shine because God sovereign making the rain fall and sun shine on the righteous and the unrighteous alike (Mat 5:45).

Ephesians 6
12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.
14 Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,
15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;
16 in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.
17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

This is for those who have come over to God by power of Christ from a world fallen in Adam. Adam was given stewardship over the world but He fell for the lies of Satan and in eating the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, he received to himself and for all his posterity a standard of righteousness which was separate from God because from there he turned from serving God to serving himself. There was no longer any truth in Adam after that because he died in spirit and from his posterity came various religions, which fabricated every kind of god, to satisfy the peoples rebellion against the righteousness of God. Everything from human sacrifice, to people scarring themselves in worship, roaming nude and sexual perversion is what has defined religion for billions of people over the ages. As for the atheist they do all these things too but for different reasons because their spiritual disposition is no different.

Prov 8:36
34 “Blessed is the man who listens to me, Watching daily at my gates, Waiting at my doorposts.
35 “For he who finds me finds life And obtains favor from the LORD.
36 “But he who sins against me injures himself; All those who hate me love death.”

The first lesson in spiritual warfare is knowing God’s Law because in that is the real standard of righteousness by which we are to live. Now this can only happen if God has initiated a spiritual rebirth in you and the only way you can be know this, is if your life witnesses in itself a perseverance in seeking the Lord Jesus Christ through every trial and joyous moment (Jn3:3,16). Unlike other religions, Christianity is not about how you dress and what you eat, it is about how you think and act, just as I have cited below. As Jesus has said in Mat 22:36-40 the Moral Law hangs on two commandments, that we are to love God above all and second love our neighbour just as we love ourselves.

Exo 20:14
“You shall not commit adultery.

Job 31:1
I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman.

Mat 5
27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’;
28 but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Spiritual Warfare is such a thing that it requires you to know the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ and that is something you can only receive from the Holy Spirit because only God can help you receive the truth about Jesus in your heart by drowning out the world’s nasty lies about Him, even when those hypocrites claim to be coming from a disposition of meaning well. The fact of the matter remains that if you don’t know the truth about Jesus (Jn14:6), you really don’t know right from wrong.

Mat 16
15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

John 6
43 Jesus answered and said to them, “Do not grumble among yourselves.
44 “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.

For most people right and wrong concerning what you can do and what you cannot do is dependent on the masses. If everybody is into piracy, then piracy is ok because everybody is doing it. If everybody supports a woman’s choice to murder the baby in her womb, then it is ok to support abortion but today a woman wants to kill her own baby because responsibility is not fun. It is an established fact that life begins at conception because if conception does not happen, the life of the egg/sperm ceases by itself. If a person dies as a foetus that person dies for real and none of us would exist today if we died as unborn babies. Tomorrow somebody might want to kill you, would you support that too, after all it is that person’s choice. Such is the ludicrous nature of the righteousness the world knows and the best thing is they take pride in this horse shit. Take the manner in which the media covers gay pride and gay parades in the US, they receive 70% of media coverage, when they are only about 3% of that nation’s population. Do you know why this is, it is because the world in sick and this is what we are up against, people who want to reduce civil society to absolute anarchy because their appetites are destructive from Adam.

Isaiah 64
5 You meet him who rejoices in doing righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. Behold, You were angry, for we sinned, We continued in them a long time; And shall we be saved?
6 For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

An eminent theologian A. W. Pink has said, the world is not governed by faith but by its senses because they all live to please themselves. Unfortunately, thought has nothing to do with pleasing the senses, so even by their own standard of righteousness what the world knows to be right is very different from what they feel like doing. Such is their plight in their broken communion with God.

Jeremiah 17
5 Thus says the LORD, “Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind And makes flesh his strength, And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
6 “For he will be like a bush in the desert And will not see when prosperity comes, But will live in stony wastes in the wilderness, A land of salt without inhabitant.
7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD And whose trust is the LORD.
8 “For he will be like a tree planted by the water, That extends its roots by a stream And will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, And it will not be anxious in a year of drought Nor cease to yield fruit.
9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
10 “I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give to each man according to his ways, According to the results of his deeds.

We live in a world that hates responsibility but we who are in Christ should understand that Adam was given stewardship over the world (Gen1:28), which he failed at when he fell to disobedience. We need to look at the world from the perspective of people living on rent (Mark 12:1-12), the unbelievers are nothing but defaulters who want the world for themselves while remaining ungrateful to God. They are nothing but a bunch of squatters who hate taking responsibility for their environment. We cannot respect them for their humanity because if these are out to destroy themselves, must they also take the earth with them? Must we respect their feelings when they have no capacity to care for what is right in the sight of God? Please do not misunderstand me, I am in no way advocating any sort of ethnic cleansing because unlike Islam (Saudi flag), Christianity is not propagated under the edge of the sword. Our sword is the Word of God (absolute truth), which pierces the hearts of men (Heb 4:12).

Gen 1
27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

Rom 5
17 For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.

If you are uncomfortable with all this am saying, please know I am not spewing hatred. I am merely telling you things as they are. Have you ever wondered why the world finds the truth in general to be bitter? This by itself should tell you that there is no truth is most people’s religion, even if they take immense pride in it. It is as the Apostle Paul says we are not to be ashamed of the Gospel for the sake of the people because we cannot compromise the truth about God just to make people feel comfortable. To them a living righteous God does not exist but that mind-set need not prevail in us who know God.

Romans 1
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.
17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “But the righteous man shall live by faith.”

Romans 3
3 What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?
4 May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar, as it is written, “That You may be justified in Your words, And prevail when You are judged.”
5 But if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He? (I am speaking in human terms.)
6 May it never be! For otherwise, how will God judge the world?

Spiritual Warfare is therefore resisting people in their unrighteousness (Ps1:1), which may involve not participating in their religious lies or robbery or bearing false witness against another or using a false measure to make a pay out or sexual immorality. You see, unbelievers have no capacity to trust God, they can at best trust in numbers (people), so what pricks them most when we resist them in their unrighteousness is a sense that awakens them to the existence of God, to whom they suddenly find themselves morally accountable, which they absolutely hate and since these have never practiced living in the truth, they never get the point until they stop living for themselves and start living for God. It is only when they turn to God that they really wake up and smell the coffee.

John 12
23 And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
24 “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.
26 “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

The side you are on in this spiritual warfare depends on who your life is accountable to. If you more concerned about what the people think of you then you are on the losing side but if you live your life in faith believing that your life is accountable to Jesus Christ, then though you may be knocked down many a times (2Cor4:6-9), you will never be knocked out (Ps37:23-24) because the salvation the Lord Jesus has purchased for you by His blood is unlosable (Eph 6:17).

Romans 10
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”–that is, the word of faith which we are preaching,
9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;
10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

To conclude, for as long as people deny God His rightful place (first) in their lives, these people will only see their neighbour as the means to serve themselves in their lawlessness (covetousness, adultery, robbery and bearing false witness from vested interest). Contrary to what the world is inclined to believe, the goal of spiritual warfare is peace and this can only be found in Christ (Is 9:6). Have you ever wondered how a world filled 7 billion people, who are only out for themselves, how does such a world not collapse to anarchy? It is by the power of God, who restrains people from actioning their evil desires. Yet these will not escape judgment for their evil motives (Prov 16:2) because as much as there is hope for the godly, the wicked will not escape God’s justice (Heb 1:8-13).

To start; from the time Adam disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of right and wrong, Adam received his own standard of righteousness, which was separate from God. This broke the communion between man and his Creator and there was a separation between man and God leading to death in the Spirit of man. This Spirit was what God breathed into Adam when he was formed out of mud, to be made in the image of God, but when man fell short of the glory of God that image was broken and since man was given stewardship over the earth and all that is in it, the earth bore the repercussion of Adam’s fall. It is from Adam that every man has a self-righteousness different from the other and this has brought the world its many ever increasing religions. God’s moral standard for His people has always been to first love God and second to love neighbor as self. In this man is called to love the Lord beyond himself and love His neighbor just as He loves himself but such is not the case with fallen man. Fallen man loves praise which almost equals worship, in his religion too (outside Christ), what he worships is nothing but metaphors of his own rebellious lust, which feeds his sinful desires against God and his neighbor. Eventually what fallen man worships is nothing but himself.

Gen 3
4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

The remedy for this fall was either an eternal death sentence for the Law breaker or that the one who put the Covenant (Law) in place to die (Heb 9:16). Now before the Son of God came as man, He was referred to as the Angel of the Lord i.e. the Arc Angel who was given the names… Michael and Gabriel. From instances such as Jacob wrestling the Angel of the Lord and Peniel and The Angel of Lord appearing in the burning bush to Moses on Mt. Sinai, we see these so termed ‘Christophany’ in Gen 22 as well. Because it has always been as John 1:18 puts it: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

Gen 22
15 Then the angel of the LORD called to Abraham a second time from heaven,
16 and said, “By Myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son,
17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed shall possess the gate of their enemies.

Now coming to the Jesus you and I know, who was born 2000 years ago, He took upon Himself additionally with losing His deity, He took upon Himself every aspect of the nature of man but without sin i.e. He was not subject to Original Sin that came through the posterity of Adam but was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1:34-35).

This Almighty God, the Second Person of Holy Trinity bore the humiliation of infirmities of fallen men yet without sin (Heb 4:15). Jesus thereby substituted the eternal death of every man, whom God the Father willed to save. It is important to understand, concerning Jesus’ death that so far as He is God, His communion with God remained at the bosom of His Father even on the cross but in the state of His sinless humanity, who bore the sins of His people in His body (1Pe 2:24), He was despicable in the sight of God and God poured out His full wrath without any mitigating factor. Theologically speaking, God did not die for us but it was the sinless state of Christ as man who died for us because God cannot die. God is immutable (unchanging) and the Man nature of Christ was a foreordained addition eternity past rather than an amendment in God the Son.

So Christ endured the full humiliation in the state of man, right from being conceived, where the world and apostate Judaism denied Him His absolute and rightful homage; humiliation going right up to the cross. It was Christ in the state of sinless man who endured this, the worst of which was when God turned His face from Him in disgust for the sin Christ as man carried in His body… but so far as Jesus is God …the Son of God… His communion with God was never broken because the nature of Sin can never stand before the presence of a Holy God, so it was in His humanity that He carried the sins of His people and not in His Deity as the Son of God. As theologian Joseph Morecraft puts it: the statement ‘God died for His people’ is a heretical statement and when Jesus said to the thief that ‘this day you will be with me in paradise’ it refers to the omniscience (Knowing All) and omnipresence (Present Everywhere) of God the Son when the thief entered the kingdom of heaven. Further it must be stated that Christ rested from His redemptive works only when He sat down at the right hand of God the Father (John 20:17), so when He said on the cross… ‘it is finished’, He was speaking only in anticipation of His redemptive work.

Act 2
27 Because You will not abandon my soul to Hades, Nor allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.

We thereby understand that as much as Christ was human, He was required to deal with the complete wages of sin and that included His soul descending to hell and his body lying dead in the tomb, making Him still subject to humiliation because it says so in Isaiah that God was pleased to crush Him. Yet because he carried sin in His flesh though He was without sin, He was subject to undergo every aspect of divine wrath including hell. However as the Old Testament scripture prophesizes, that God will not let His body be left to decay and He has seen the travail of His soul and be satisfied, and so He was raised to life having overcome sin and death for His Church.

Acts 2
30 Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; 31 He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

When Jesus resurrected on the third day, He rose accomplishing redemption: the mightiest work of God known to His people since creation because through the redemptive work of the cross He reconciled all things to Himself. It is this reason that the Redemptive Sabbath, the day God rested from His Redemptive works is celebrated over the Creation Sabbath, the day God rested from His Creation works. When the Lord Jesus Christ met the disciples after His Resurrection (John 20:19-23), He breathed on them said “Receive the Holy Spirit”, which was indicative that the Spiritual life Adam lost for every man was restored for the elect in Christ.

Gen 2 (Creation Account)7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

John 20 (Redemptive Account)22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

This Living Spirit is made available to all whom God the Father brings into Salvation in His Son. Today God the Holy Spirit teaches concerning Jesus’ redemptive works through God breathed Scripture, to sustain this restored living spirit and image of God.

2Timothy 3
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

Matthew 4
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

To conclude, I’d like to state that this Good Friday message is therefore as 1John4:10 puts it, that it is not that we loved God first but He loved His people out of no merit of their own and sent his Son to be the propitiation for their sins.

It is considered by many Christians today that believing in Jesus Christ means that you are free from the Law. People like to quote Romans 6:14 and John 1:17 to show that the Law does not apply to believing Christians. They say Christian life is a standard higher than the Law. Well, it must be understood that there are two aspects of the Law i.e. the physical and the spiritual/moral. Now the Bible says that if one keeps the physical aspect and yet transgresses the spiritual aspect of the Law, he still transgresses the Law but he who does not keep the physical aspect of the Law and yet maintains himself in the spiritual aspect of the Law, he keeps the Law.

Romans 2
25 For indeed circumcision is of value if you practice the Law; but if you are a transgressor of the Law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision.
26 So if the uncircumcised man keeps the requirements of the Law, will not his uncircumcision be regarded as circumcision?
27 And he who is physically uncircumcised, if he keeps the Law, will he not judge you who though having the letter of the Law and circumcision are a transgressor of the Law?
28 For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh.
29 But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.

The Law therefore seen is Spiritual (Romans 7:14) and all hangs on two commandments, it is to first love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and secondly to love your neighbor (even it is your enemy) as you love yourself (Luke 10:27). It must be understood that the law that came to a close in Romans 10:4 was the law, the physical aspect which people used to establish their own self righteousness. Gal 3:24 says that it is the Law that leads us to Christ because the Law makes people realize the dreadfulness of sin (Romans 7:7) and convicts them (James 2:9) that they may be brought to repentance… back to Christ. As His Church is the believing body that is susceptible to sin, the reason a Christian has been brought to the terms of facing his sin, is because the Law is written on his heart (Romans 2:15) and so he keeps the Law and is judged by the Law (Romans 2:12) but his faith in Christ has made the curse of the Law fall on Him who was the atonement sacrifice of all the sin of His people (Gal 3:10, 13).

There was a time I felt that the grace by which I was saved was grace that gave me freedom from the Law but I have now come to realize that that is certainly not the case. In fact it is by His moral Law (Romans 6:16-18) which has been imputed in me by His Spirit that I realize that the grace I have received is not one that gives me freedom to sin (Romans 6:15). The Law is perfect (Psalms 19:7), nothing which is perfect can get any better. If I am called to love my neighbor as I love myself, then I am automatically called to never covet, steal or murder against my neighbor. The way I had come to receive the grace of Christ, was a way that was lawless, a blasphemy against Christ Himself. This I have seen as my sin, for in loving Christ, I am called to obey His commandments.

John 15:10 (Jesus’ word)10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

Now here is an interesting thought in John 15:10, as per reformed theological study Jesus Christ is referred to as the Second Adam. You see both Adam and Christ were subject to the commandments of God. Adam was created perfect (un-fallen) while Christ did not inherit original sin as He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of a virgin. Both Adam and Christ were representatives of a people, while Adam represented all mankind, Christ represented the Church. Both were subject to the Covenant of Life i.e. the Salvation of the people they represented that depended on their works in obedience to God. It must be seen that this testing was only for a certain period of time; else the term ‘eternal life’ would not have existed. It was a famous theologian who said: In Christ, the sons of Adam boast of more blessing than their father lost. So if any racial distinctions are ever to be drawn, it is those who were represented by Christ who are superior and this is grace that he who is saved is saved by the merit of Christ and not himself. For by himself, his fallen nature is inherent from Adam.

The Bible does say that man is not justified by the Law and even where there is no Law, people perish (Romans 2:12). It is right that man is justified by faith in Christ but the grace that we receive in Christ extends to receiving the Holy Spirit, who fulfills in us the requirements of the Law (Romans 8:4). Though it says in 1Cor 15:56 that the power of sin is in the law it should never be considered that the Law is Sin (Romans 7:7) for a person comes to terms with the power of sin through the Law (Spiritual) besides 1John 3:4 refers to sin as lawlessness.

Matthew 5:18 (Jesus’ word)18 “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Atonement was accomplished on the cross (John 19:30), while the Salvation of the Church is being accomplished in the furnace of trial and affliction, suffering for Christ sake (Phil 1:29) by believers all over the world (1Peter 5:9). On the other hand the sin playing out of a person’s lust accomplishes death (James 1:15) for the reprobate as it incurs the wrath of God (Jeremiah 30:23-24). So we see that His Law shall remain till His Salvation is accomplished for every elect and His wrath accomplished for every deemed reprobate.

There are many religions and cultures around the world who claims to adhere to strict regulations but when you step out into their streets and public places, their nature of rebellion against the spiritual Law of God sticks out like a sore thumb but these will surely receive His justice and even those whose acknowledgement of His Lordship is nothing more than lip service (Mat 15:8) and outward displays these will also be deemed under the same lawlessness.

Matthew 7
15 “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.
16 “You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
17 “So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
18 “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
19 “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
20 “So then, you will know them by their fruits.
21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.
22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’
23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’